9 baby ducks saved from a storm drain along Highway 118

Nine lucky ducklings are back with their mother after being saved from a storm drain on Highway 118 by an unlikely group of rescuers.

On Wednesday, at around 1:30 p.m., a Dartmouth man saw a duck and her ducklings waddling down the middle of the highway near the Dartmouth Crossing exit.

He pulled over to herd them to safer ground, but some of the ducklings tumbled into a storm drain on the side of the road. Soon, more cars pulled over to help.

Jodi Boyes, a veterinary technician student, was one of those who stopped to help.

She was on her way home from a shift at the Homeward Bound City Pound in the Burnside Industrial Park.

Boyes drove the mother duck and the remaining ducklings to Homeward Bound to keep them safe while rescuers attempted to save the ducklings in the storm drain.

"They were all over the back of my car, it was kind of cute. They were moving so fast I almost couldn't see them," said Boyes,

With help from the Department of Transportation — and a growing group of rescuers — the group was able to remove the grate from the storm drain and retrieve four of the five fallen ducks.

One of the ducklings had gone down a run-off pipe into the lake.

"Unfortunately when they swim for too long all by themselves, they can actually get waterlogged and drown," said Chelsea Pullen, a veterinary technician for Hope for Wildlife who came to help rescue the missing duckling.

She and another rescuer ended up getting into the lake to herd the baby duck to shore.

"It was definitely cold, freezing," she said. "But it's actually the mud and the weeds are definitely the gross part, squishing between your toes."

In the end all the ducklings were reunited with their mother.

"It was very heart warming when you see that one little lone duck swim to his brothers and sisters and mom," said Pullen. "You're like, 'Yay, we did it!'"